CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCES
(June 26 – July 2, 2020)
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CMS Releases Proposed Rule for Home Health Payment System
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released a proposed rule that would make payment rate and policy changes to the calendar year 2021 Home Health Prospective Payment System. Two of the changes being proposed in this rule including the following. First, this rule would increase projected aggregate payments to home health agencies by 2.6%, or $540 million. Second, this rule would make permanent the interim changes to the plan-of-care requirements that had been recently implemented in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency. More specifically, the rule would require that plans of care include any provision of remote patient monitoring or other services to be furnished via a telecommunications system, as well as a description of how the use of these technologies would achieve patient care goals. Furthermore, these technological services must be tied to patient-specific needs, cannot substitute for an in-person home visit, and cannot be considered a home visit for the purposes of patient eligibility or payment. CMS is accepting comments through August 31, 2020. More information can be found here.